


The Power Opposed

by coraxes



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Godmaster ending spoilers, Post-Canon, Siblings, ignores sinister overtones in favor of sibling feelings, tfw your babiest sibling turns into a god and pops out of your toilet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21782161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Hornet hoped her sibling would choose to face the Infection at its source and put a permanent end to the Radiance. She didn't expect it to do so without even facing the Hollow Knight. But the Infection is gone, and the Hollow Knight is freed--so clearlysomethinghappened.
Relationships: Hornet & The Knight (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet & The Knight, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Knight
Comments: 9
Kudos: 312





	The Power Opposed

The Hollow Knight’s shade was smaller than Hornet had expected. But then, she had never seen a full-grown vessel before. It hovered in a ball of darkness over the Knight’s prone form; only the narrow white slashes of its eyes betrayed any awareness.

Hornet still held her needle at the ready, waiting for this to be a trick, for the Radiance to burst free from the Knight. The pockets of Infection had shriveled. No orange light shone from the Crossroads or even the egg itself. But the Radiance couldn’t just be gone.

Nothing moved except the shade, bobbing gently in place.

“Wait here,” Hornet ordered shade and Knight both. The shade blinked at her; good enough. She backed into the Egg, half an eye still on the shade, and as the void started to smoke around her she turned and ran to the inner chamber.

She had ventured here once before when the final Dreamer had disappeared and the egg opened. Foolish, perhaps, but Hornet hadn’t gotten to be where she was without a healthy sense of curiosity. She had seen the Hollow Knight sealed and chained in the central room, surrounded by Infection. But when she reached the central room the chains were broken and the Infection nowhere to be seen. Not even a smudge of orange stained the floors.

The Radiance couldn’t just be gone. But if it was, the seal that had contained it would have disappeared too, purpose fulfilled.

What had that little ghost _done_?

Hornet’s vision swam as the lifeless air filled her lungs. She staggered briefly and then darted out the way she had come.

When she emerged the Hollow Knight was sitting up on its knees. The shade was nowhere to be seen, but the Knight held its broken nail, tip dragging on the ground. Hornet darted to the side, out of the nail’s reach. The Knight tilted its head, something like recognition in its eyes. She thought. Hornet had never spent much time with the vessels. Before the Knight was sealed, they were a reminder that soon her mother would enter a dream, never to speak to Hornet again. After she had mostly killed them.

“What our father did to you was unforgiveable, though I understand his desperation,” Hornet offered. “If the Radiance truly is gone, I’m glad you’re free.”

The Knight gave no response, of course.

“ _Is_ the Radiance gone?” Could it understand her? This one was supposed to have no mind of its own—a tricky thing to banish, even for a god—

The Knight nodded. Tension left Hornet’s shoulders as the breath rushed from her lungs.

“ _How_?”

No response, of course.

Hornet sighed and sheathed her needle. She needed answers; until she knew what happened to the Radiance she couldn’t believe it wasn’t just waiting for another chance to strike. But she couldn’t leave the Hollow Knight, either. Not yet. Not after everything their father had put it through.

She inched closer, drawing out a length of silk. “There is a town nearby. Let me fix the crack in your chitin and we can rest there.”

Obediently the Knight lowered its head. Hornet expected more resistence though she wasn’t sure why. The other vessels had been happy enough to fight her when she stood in their way; the Knight, though, had been chosen because it followed orders so easily. Did it truly have no will of its own? What was it thinking, now that it was freed, if it was thinking anything at all?

She wrapped the wound in silk, pressing so it sealed along the edges, careful to avoid the Knight’s eye. When Hornet used silk on her own injuries it fused into her chitin. Hopefully it would do the same for another of the Pale King’s children.

Once she was done the Hollow Knight braced itself on its nail and levered to its feet. The road to Dirtmouth’s entrance was eerily quiet. Hornet realized why when she saw a tiktik’s empty shell lying on a rocky outcropping. Without the Infection to push it forward, it had simply stopped, mind too atrophied to support itself.

Hornet glanced up at the Hollow Knight. It stared down at her. She shuddered.

Tall as the Knight was, it still struggled to pull itself up the chain leading to the surface. Hornet ascended easily with a well-placed throw of her needle, but there was nothing she could do to help the Knight but watch its progress. Finally it threw its upper body over the edge of the well, dropping the nail in the dirt; Hornet offered her hands and the Knight used her as an anchor as it climbed out the rest of the way. Once safe it stayed on its knees for a moment, breathing heavily.

“We don’t have much farther to go,” Hornet offered. “See the lights?” She didn’t stay in Dirtmouth often, preferring to camp in Hallownest’s ruins, but there had been so many homes left empty in the past few decades that no one made a fuss when she claimed one as her own. The Knight got to its feet, and they walked on.

Only the Elderbug was outside, though light still shown through a few windows. “Hornet! And—oh, my.”

Hornet smiled briefly. She spent so much time talking to things that would never respond to her, except with an attack. It was nice, meeting bugs who could talk back, and she had known Elderbug since before he’d earned the moniker. “My sibling,” she said.

Elderbug nodded, eyes wide. “I…see.”

“It was trapped in the ruins below for a long time.” Hornet hesitated. “You may have noticed—that is, there may be more bugs coming up from the kingdom now.” She hoped. The Infection didn’t take hold of one’s mind immediately. There may still be some who weren’t too far gone.

“Perhaps they’ll tell me about their travels, then,” said Elderbug. He cleared his throat and forced his expression back to something calmer. “In the meantime, I will stay right here. One little adventurer gave me a flower from the ruins—I’ve just gotten a propagation to take in the garden, you see?” He nodded at a patch of earth outside his own house where a delicate flower’s petals glowed silver. “I couldn’t leave now. Perhaps anyone who escapes that place will appreciate the sight.”

“I’m sure they will.” Hornet couldn’t understand the desire to stay in one place for so long, still, but Elderbug was still alive and had his memories, which was more than could be said for most bugs.

She led the Hollow Knight through the streets to her hut; it was small and dusty, but neither of those things bothered Hornet. The Knight had to stoop to get through the door. (She wondered if, someday, she would be quite so tall. She would have to find another hut if so. And perhaps a longer needle.)

Hornet nudged the Knight toward the bedroom; the bed was closer to her size than its, but it could make do. “Rest,” she ordered.

For the first time, the Knight hesitated.

So it did have a will of its own, after all. How inconvenient for the king. How pointless that it had been sentenced to its duty.

“If she is gone, you won’t dream of her.”

The Knight’s head bowed. It wrapped long fingers around one of Hornet’s horns for a moment; she let it, too startled to protest. Then it took a deep breath and shuffled on.

* * *

Hornet didn’t sleep for some time. Questions left her mind restless, and she couldn’t leave the Knight alone. She polished her needle, patched her dress, made a half-hearted effort at dusting. She pulled out her maps and tried to remember where she had last seen Pale Ore; the Knight’s nail would need it. Finally Hornet found a tin of tea deep in the kitchen cabinets. She made herself a cup, curled on the couch, and fell asleep.

Hornet didn’t dream. When she woke, she woke to a bright pair of round eyes staring out of the void. Then they blinked and _eight_ eyes opened instead.

She lurched back, reaching for her needle, but it wasn’t there. The void surrounded her and she yelped as she collided with it, heart beating too loud in her chest—

The void, or the creature made of it, made a grumbling noise—

_flash of red in all this green we know this one a laugh in our mother’s garden a hand pulling me from father’s ashes “you could do it if you had the will”_

“Little ghost?”

The eyes crinkled. They looked like Hornet’s mother’s eyes when she smiled. Hornet saw herself, a tiny speck of red compared to an ocean of black.

It should have frightened her, but the idea that this creature was _laughing_ at her when before it hadn’t been able to speak—she shoved out at the void and this time it didn’t hurt. The void was solid but not dense, like a ball of felt. “You don’t stop being little to me just by—” She hesitated. “What did you _do,_ little ghost? Is this why the Radiance has gone? The Hollow Knight is freed, you know.”

Neither of those seemed to surprise the little ghost. In her mind Hornet saw an arena—a _familiar_ arena, from a series of dreams she had already half-forgotten upon waking. Brightness flashed down from the sky and she smelled burning chitin, but the shadows beneath her were cool. And they were _rising._

 _There were many of us,_ said a voice that the ghost wasn’t supposed to have. It sounded smug, and rustled with undertones like dead leaves. Hornet was reminded of their father. _And she was only one light._

Hornet shook her head. “To think you could bypass the Dreamers completely. And what does that make you now, ghost? Only one of many shades?”

The void began to shrink into itself, eyes disappearing a pair at a time, until only the familiar round set looked back at her from a familiar face. _We are all part of the void, but I am still here._ The ghost looked up. Hornet did too, squirming so she could sit properly now without the void constraining her movement.

The Hollow Knight stood in the doorway. Something about its posture seemed uncertain. The ghost bounded up to meet its eyes—not the graceful hover of a shade, but an ordinary leap, only it halted at the top of its arc. Hornet’s siblings pressed their foreheads together, black void and white chitin.

They seemed to be communicating—what, she didn’t know. To her the ghost said, amusement sharp at the edges, _Thank you for testing me. Come to the Abyss someday and I will test you instead._ One tendril of void scooped her needle from the floor and tossed it to her.

A laugh bubbled out of Hornet’s throat. Her sibling, alright, she thought warmly.

Then darkness flared, and the ghost vanished.

**Author's Note:**

> ["how about that airline food" voice] so how 'bout that pale king huh! seems like a dick! the title is from his note about how the void needs to bow to him or some shit. up yours, pale king.
> 
> the godmaster ending is so fucking funny to me. i meant to write some crack about it, but ended up writing sibling fluff instead. because i love siblings.
> 
> anyway this is my first fic for HK, so comments and kudos would be much appreciated!


End file.
